I must admit I'm a sucker for all these 'archive footage' videos. Give me ten minutes of anonymous faces wandering in Parisian streets in 1927 and I will watch it with the fascinated scrutiny of a little boy over an anthill. Or New York, or Beijing, in fact I enjoyed Chaplin's "Kids Auto Races in Venice" less for Chaplin's constant interfering than for the time capsule it represented. A few years later, I started watching clips of Moroccan cities in the 50s, 60s, I was surprised by a talkie from the 30s where the language was similar to the one I grew up with and I just enjoyed the sight of modernity dating as far back as 1968... There's just something about the passing of time that totally sublimates banality.
And so on that simple basic level, I enjoyed John Schlesinger's documentary "Terminus" (quite a name for a career-starter!) The film is a 24-hour on the life going into the Waterloo station, the living and the mechanical. From the early arrivant to the late-comers, from those commuting between towns to join their workplaces to simple passer-bys, in half and hour, the film covers a wide range of travellers and shuttlers and workers, typical Englishmen with their bowler hats and umbrellas who seem to directly come out of a Magritte picture, women taking forever to kiss themselves goodbye, challenging the patience of the controller, and so many closeups on the marvels of the Industrial age, reminding us of the masterstroke of engineering the London Railroad or Underground were. One of the film's standout moments is a boy checking out the complex mechanisms underneath the train, captivated by the intermittent bursts of smokes, his curiosity echoes ours while watching the film.
1961 indeed, seems like yesterday, Queen Elizabeth was 35, John Cleese was 22 and Princess Diana was just born... 1961, but it was 61 years ago, which means that the document is as close to the year 1900 as it is to today. No need to imagine the changes, they're tremendous, and I looked at the film like a historical document, the way Britain used to be... I am not British but for thirty minutes the film made me feel part of that urban life where the stressful necessities of scheduling met the British legendary phlegm. Schlesinger as if he was visionary enough to understand the film didn't need any 'drama' doesn't go for the scoop or the sensation, so the closest we get to 'something' special is the annoying laugh of a young man and a little boy who lost his mother. The camera sticks a little too long on his face, perhaps the only time Schlesinger yielded to a voyeuristic pulsion, from the big picture to the little fellow.
But it is a documentary after all, and a good one at that. Schlesinger he didn't just let the camera roll, the angles were deliberate, so were the ellipses, the travellings shots, the close-ups and ultimately the elaborate editing. Some choices of background musics are fitting, one can question the use of "Jamaica" when a group of Black people is showed, but nevertheless, there's not one moment where our attention isn't caught by the things that have changed, whether the way people dressed or the way they behaved or the way they spent time when cellphones didn't exist. Still, witnessing the things that haven't changed is equally heartwarming. We still feel a load in our hearts when paying goodbye to close ones and losing a child is still a parent's nightmare...
The film ends on a strange 'noirish' tone, during the night, showing a whole other reality and foreshadowing the sleazy nocturnal universes depicted in Schlesinger's "Darling", "Billy Liar" or "Midnight Cowboy". It's a misinterpretation to regard Schlesinger as a documentary-style director, despite him figuring among the 'British New Wave' pioneers like Karel Reisz and Lindsay Anderson. While his attention to mundane details is integral to the realism of kitchen sink dramas, there are some elements of quirkiness, humor and transgression that regularly pop up in "Terminus" and that are so subtle they might either be missed or be the figment of my over-analysis. But I doubt Schlesinger made a documentary for the sake of realism.
Documentary isn't an "unnatural" way to film normality, and coming from a director who made a normality out of things deemed unnatural, it's quite a delightful irony .
And so on that simple basic level, I enjoyed John Schlesinger's documentary "Terminus" (quite a name for a career-starter!) The film is a 24-hour on the life going into the Waterloo station, the living and the mechanical. From the early arrivant to the late-comers, from those commuting between towns to join their workplaces to simple passer-bys, in half and hour, the film covers a wide range of travellers and shuttlers and workers, typical Englishmen with their bowler hats and umbrellas who seem to directly come out of a Magritte picture, women taking forever to kiss themselves goodbye, challenging the patience of the controller, and so many closeups on the marvels of the Industrial age, reminding us of the masterstroke of engineering the London Railroad or Underground were. One of the film's standout moments is a boy checking out the complex mechanisms underneath the train, captivated by the intermittent bursts of smokes, his curiosity echoes ours while watching the film.
1961 indeed, seems like yesterday, Queen Elizabeth was 35, John Cleese was 22 and Princess Diana was just born... 1961, but it was 61 years ago, which means that the document is as close to the year 1900 as it is to today. No need to imagine the changes, they're tremendous, and I looked at the film like a historical document, the way Britain used to be... I am not British but for thirty minutes the film made me feel part of that urban life where the stressful necessities of scheduling met the British legendary phlegm. Schlesinger as if he was visionary enough to understand the film didn't need any 'drama' doesn't go for the scoop or the sensation, so the closest we get to 'something' special is the annoying laugh of a young man and a little boy who lost his mother. The camera sticks a little too long on his face, perhaps the only time Schlesinger yielded to a voyeuristic pulsion, from the big picture to the little fellow.
But it is a documentary after all, and a good one at that. Schlesinger he didn't just let the camera roll, the angles were deliberate, so were the ellipses, the travellings shots, the close-ups and ultimately the elaborate editing. Some choices of background musics are fitting, one can question the use of "Jamaica" when a group of Black people is showed, but nevertheless, there's not one moment where our attention isn't caught by the things that have changed, whether the way people dressed or the way they behaved or the way they spent time when cellphones didn't exist. Still, witnessing the things that haven't changed is equally heartwarming. We still feel a load in our hearts when paying goodbye to close ones and losing a child is still a parent's nightmare...
The film ends on a strange 'noirish' tone, during the night, showing a whole other reality and foreshadowing the sleazy nocturnal universes depicted in Schlesinger's "Darling", "Billy Liar" or "Midnight Cowboy". It's a misinterpretation to regard Schlesinger as a documentary-style director, despite him figuring among the 'British New Wave' pioneers like Karel Reisz and Lindsay Anderson. While his attention to mundane details is integral to the realism of kitchen sink dramas, there are some elements of quirkiness, humor and transgression that regularly pop up in "Terminus" and that are so subtle they might either be missed or be the figment of my over-analysis. But I doubt Schlesinger made a documentary for the sake of realism.
Documentary isn't an "unnatural" way to film normality, and coming from a director who made a normality out of things deemed unnatural, it's quite a delightful irony .