LAST ORDERS
and
OTHERS
LAST ORDERS
LAST ORDERS
Produced during his first year at art college, and screened in its eight minute entirety on Peter Lewis’ experimental film review show ‘Reel Time’, Last Orders was a milestone in Marcus Thompson’s film career. An essay in the futility of unfulfilled dreams, it is the story of Bill (William Roach), an eighty-year old working class Bristolian, who spends his days sitting in a forgotten pub by the docks. Looking back, he recalls his life as a local dustman, and the times spent in the very same pub after work. dreaming of the bright future ahead. The film switches from black and white to colour as young Bill (strangely, also called William Roach) chauffeur driven in a 1930 Bentley, courts a beautiful young flapper. The dream is broken as the lovers gaze into a stagnant pond in the gardens of a stately home, and the action returns to the colour-less world of the old man sitting in the same pub looking back across his uneventful life.
Thompson shot the film on his father’s 1950’s non reflex Bolex H16, and built his own lights; banks of 500 watt photo floods mounted on foil-covered boards which in turn were stacked and able to swivel to cast light directionally. The film was processed by HTV and the titles were silk-screened onto cell and superimposed over still frames. The soundtrack comprised of music by Fats Waller and Chopin.
During the seventies, the film was lost, and since it was shot on reversal stock, no negative exists. The search for tapes from the show ‘Reel Time’ (Redifussion, Bristol) continues.
Marcus Thompson
OTHERS
For Tara
This short film was shot with an Éclair NPR on a roll of 16mm that I had already shot some firework footage on. The superimpositions of fireworks (backwards and upside down) are from the first shoot and Digby the dog, Robbie, Jude and Tara are from the second. That’s in camera opticals for you. I had first seen it done by mistake in Rome when an exposed roll of 35mm had been reloaded by mistake and exposed twice on the pilot for ‘Neat & Tidy’. Worked really well on that occasion by the way.
Alan
I had a good friend who was a lot of fun and up for anything. He had cultivated some healthy grass plants in a run-down shed in Bristol, whilst studying stage management at The Old Vic Theatre School, but a nosy neighbor took a peek and reported him. I don’t know how he managed to get into the US, but once there he became a successful carpenter known as ‘The Limey Carpenter’ in New York City. When he did eventually return he rode a bike through Switzerland, France, England, Scotland and Belgium for me in a film I made for Honda. On the way to Geneva we shot test footage from which this little tribute is made. He moved on, sadly, but the crazy Dude abides in this film. Gary Moore, who wrote the theme for ‘Middleton’s Changeling’, and Phil Lynott’s haunting track, Parisienne Walkways, speaks for itself.
Eclipse
On August 11, 1999 there was a total eclipse of the sun and because I had been discussing shooting one of Shakespeare’s tragedies with the brilliant actor, Leo Wringer, I thought it would be great to shoot him doing a soliloquy from Hamlet in Richmond Park as the eclipse took place. What better scenario than the apparent extinguishing of the sun for this cosmic contemplation of ending it all. Bach’s Partita No 2 for solo violin in D Minor is haunting and mystical made more so by doubling it up out of sync with itself, and partially backwards, if I remember right. Super 8 never fails to deliver on occasions like this.
Butterflies
My only experience of animation – shot on Super-8 during a hot summer at art college in Bristol, using cut out card on a static background. Click – move – click – move – click – move – for days on end during which time I became ill and had to take a week off in bed. Needless to say, I decided to give animation a miss, much to Walt and Mickey’s delight.
I Love You
Speaks for itself – but the message is scratched onto the frames of this Super-8 clip using a pin. Shirley Temple and Buddy Ebsen dance in a number from ‘Captain January’ (1936 dir: David Butler) in a number called ‘At The Codfish Ball’. Ebsen had an amazing career and went on to play the lead character in ‘Barnaby Jones’, the TV detective series at the age of 65 and then well into his seventies. Amazing.
LIBERATOR
I was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and grew up on the shores of Lake Maracaibo because my father worked in the oil business. Memories of my childhood in this beautiful country pervade my dreams, and I will soon embark on the epic mission of bringing Simon Boliver’s heroic liberation of the country from colonial rule to the screen. Marcus Whitfield’s acclaimed screenplay is a fitting tribute to the Liberator.
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