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Features

My best writing has always been driven by a desire to recontextualise art through my own original viewpoint and it's my long-form features that see that desire most fully realised. These features cover a variety of different publications including Cinema Year Zero, Little White Lies, The Quietus, Photogénie, Under the Radar, and Skiddle.

CINEMA YEAR ZERO •

Feature: Intro to Volume 16: VISCERA

“If you can’t bear pain, you don’t live up to your reputation.”

That line, spoken in Chang Cheh and Pao Hsueh-li’s The Boxer from Shantung (1972), speaks to a common sentiment found in the many kung fu films produced in Hong Kong under the Shaw Brothers. For the humble martial artist, the body isn’t only the means by which they perform their craft, or enact violent comeuppance on local goons, it’s a physical manifestation of their reputation in the wider community.
The London Magazine •

Feature: The Art of Leading a Witness in Anatomy of a Fall by Blaise Radley

What is a courtroom if not a staging ground for storytelling? Every aspect of a trial, be it criminal or corporate, hinges on two opposing sides laying claim to a particular version of events, each new witness and piece of evidence placed in a neat order to lead their audience, the jury, to a set conclusion. In the end, the victor will be the side that spins the most convincing yarn, regardless of any overriding “truth” of the matter. But what pushes a juror to ignore the ambiguities such duelling perspectives leave behind and choose one narrative over another? In French director Justine Triet’s latest film, the courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall (2023), it’s not only the lawyers that are leading the witness but the formalised aspects of filmmaking craft.
CINEMA YEAR ZERO •

Feature: A Star is Burns, or Homer vs. Film Criticism

Over the course of its (remarkably still ongoing) 34-season run, Matt Groening has only asked that his name be scrubbed from the credits of The Simpsons on one occasion. Let that sink in for a moment. When jerkass Homer refused to give poor old Abe his kidney not once, but twice, Groening’s name was there. When Homer got botched laser eye surgery and his eyes made that horrible sound as they crusted over, Groening’s name was there.
The London Magazine •

Feature: The (Ig)noble Sacrifice of the Author in Afire

Literary history is littered with so-called troubled geniuses, authors whose work is revered in spite of, and often even due to, their infamous tempers and tempestuous personal lives. One needn’t go far to find eyebrow-raising stories about Ernest Hemingway and his penchant for intoxicated brawling and adulterous womanising, or the abusive behaviour of reclusive drugged-out “mad doctor” Hunter S. Thompson.
CINEMA YEAR ZERO •

Feature: Isn’t All Auteurism Vulgar?

Imagine, if you can, a film beyond the realms of reclamation. The photography neither symmetrical enough to appease “One Perfect Shot” fetishists nor consciously ugly enough to sate the ascetic wants of the avant-garde. The budget not low enough to be applauded as bootstrap-pulling nor high enough to be vouched for as unfairly disregarded. And, most importantly, featuring no ageing, esteemed director around whom die-hard fans can rally screaming "late style!"
photogénie •

Feature: In George A. Romero’s Martin, Even Existence Is a Compromise

In the brief seconds of black that open George A. Romero’s 1977 film Martin, a voice shouts out from the darkness. It’s not the screams of one of the eponymous pseudo-vampire’s victims or the bellows of an angry mob, fiery torches held aloft—though there are plenty of those to come. Instead, it’s the sound of a train guard barking a command: “All aboard!” It’s fitting that the film begins with an open entreaty to cross a threshold, given how concerned it is with the man-made mythology surrounding vampires.
Little White Lies •

Feature: Climbing the Company Ladder Means a lot of Bootlicking in I Was Born, But…

Fathers and sons, daughters and fathers, mothers and daughters – few filmmakers have so repeatedly evinced the perpetual disappointments that form between parents and their progeny, whether it’s the dashed hopes an impoverished silk-mill worker holds for her titularly singular child in The Only Son, or the permanent split an arranged marriage wedges between a father and daughter in Late Spring. Time and time again Ozu positions the familial bond as a contract destined to be mismanaged and broken, with no crack running deeper than that forged by failed expectations.
Little White Lies •

Feature: How capitalism breeds blue-collar burnout in Thief

In his 1981 debut narrative feature, director Michael Mann scrutinises the American Dream as it is sold to blue-collar workers. Played with an apathetic swagger by James Caan, Frank is the logical end point of a capitalist society that exploits manual labourers, selling them a white picket-fence fantasy they’re ultimately excluded from. It’s telling that the annihilation of the house’s picture-perfect facade is the film’s climactic sequence, Mann shooting each cathartic explosion from multiple angles.
Film Daze •

Feature: The Social Currency of Smoking Pot in 'Dazed & Confused'

Few eras of cinema fetishised “cool” more than the independent movement in the early ‘90s, and few eras were more fetishised for being cool than the ‘70s, a decade of suburban apathy and directionless rebellion. Pot smoking had shifted from being a symbol of hedonic liberation in the ‘60s to a signifier of popularity, a blasé form of recreation for jocks and burnouts alike—assuming you were high enough up the social ladder.
Loose Lips •

Feature: Cornish gentrification and dubbing in Bait

Seeing may be believing, but passive knowledge requires a few more senses to solidify. When you know a place—really know a place—it soaks into your subconscious, a series of sense memories that you’d never think twice about. It’s the smell of your neighbour’s hedge trimmings; the feel of uneven tarmac from a poorly bodged pothole. It’s the exact sound your front door makes as it clips against the wonky latch. You don’t process these things as significant, but, on a long enough time scale, our homes end up taking residence inside us as well.
Loose Lips •

Feature: Good Time and the contradiction of compassion

Two months on from considering how Daniel Lopatin undercut the anxious energy of Uncut Gems (2020), it seemed fitting to analyse his work on Good Time (2017). While both films feature abrasive scores by Lopatin, aka Oneohtrix Point Never, the purpose of that abrasion is distinct. Where Uncut Gems is giddy, Good Time is dour, and where Uncut Gems saw Lopatin twist anxiety into cosmic purpose, in Good Time he’s far more in tune with the minute-to-minute seat-of-your-pants propulsion. Subservient, however, he is not.
Loose Lips •

Feature: Uncut Gems and the climax that never comes

What does winning sound like? Is it the rolling thunder of hands beating together; the final beep test *beep* after everyone has collapsed; the ding of a microwave containing molten leftovers? Victory, of course, doesn’t have one tone, but sounds do hold an uncanny power to trigger deep seated feelings of validation. There’s a reason mobile developers spend years perfecting the sound a treasure chest makes, hoping to trigger precious endorphins and lock you into another cycle of delayed gratification. Humans crave catharsis.
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