Quote:
With The Deep Blue Sea, Terence Davies selectively transforms a lesser-known Terence Rattigan play into a broody rumination on emotional freedom and frustrated desire. Davies abandons Rattigan’s linear narrative and compressed timeline in favor of a more free-form structure, one that underlines the ebb and flow of memory as it shuttles between past and present. At the same time, The Deep Blue Sea confirms Davies’s continued engagement with the period melodrama—in this case, the variety of “woman’s picture” exemplified by the doomed romanticism of David Lean’s Brief Encounter, a touchstone that The Deep Blue Sea on several occasions blatantly references. Set against the backdrop of post-WWII Britain, a dowdy period of rationing and reconstruction, The Deep Blue Sea hinges on the seemingly irresolvable predicament of its heroine, Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz). Trapped within the confines of a passionless marriage to older, well-to-do Sir William (Simon Russell Beale), Hester vainly seeks satisfaction in an ardent affair with young, impulsive Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston). Absorbed in memories of his carefree pre-war days, Freddie ultimately cannot return Hester’s affection, and their relationship soon degenerates into noisy rows and mutual recriminations.

Signaling from the onset its emancipation from stage-bound prolixity, The Deep Blue Sea opens with a remarkable, nearly wordless sequence as Hester prepares to commit suicide by gassing herself, a fragmented montage punctuated by periodic fades to black, and set to Samuel Barber’s dolorous violin concerto. Losing consciousness, Hester’s mind casts back to earlier times: a fireside evening spent with William that brilliantly illuminates both the growing chasm between husband and wife, as well as the glow of almost paternalistic warmth that yet unites them; and other evenings at the pub with Freddie, the two of them chiming in on choruses of popular songs with the other patrons. Davies captures Hester and Freddie’s vertiginous, all-consuming sensuality with a bold overhead shot of the pair making love, the camera dizzily swirling through several 360-degree pivots.

A testament to Davies’s pictorial prowess, The Deep Blue Sea opens and closes with two elaborate tracking shots. The camera moves along an anonymous suburban London street, passing across the façade of a particular domicile as though at random, winding up at the window of Hester’s flat. (The final shot reverses the direction.) During a flashback to the war, another bravura shot (fully two minutes long) tracks along a subway platform. Evacuated underground by the Blitz, a cross-section of London citizenry listens, and slowly joins in, as a lone voice wails the mournful Irish ballad “Molly Malone.” Only at the end of the shot do we see Hester and William huddled together. Taken together, these moments reinforce the notion that the story we’re privy to at the moment is only one among countless untold others.

The Deep Blue Sea is amply and aptly generous to its three main characters, refusing easy conventions that would render William as entirely cold, aloof, and unlikeable; nor does it stint on showing Freddie’s callous brutality toward Hester, even as it suggests a number of plausible reasons for his behavior. Ultimately, this isn’t an either/or film. Caught, as its title indicates, “between the devil and the deep blue sea,” Hester can only grow into a fully realized human being by letting go, releasing the hold that both men have on her. Davies again manages to convey this through the simplest of visual means: matched shots of Hester drawing closed the curtains of her dingy room on the night that sees her attempt her own death, and then, at film’s end, throwing the curtains open on the uncertain light of a new day.

The.Deep.Blue.Sea.2011.576p.BluRay.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 38 min
Size: 	3.14 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1024x552 
Aspect ratio:  	1.85:1
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	4 046 kb/s
BPP: 	0.298
Audio
#1:  	English 5.1ch AC-3 @ 448 kb/s
#2:  	English 2.0ch AAC LC @ 72.0 kb/s (Commentary by Director Terence Davies and Journalist Ian Haydn Smith)

https://nitro.download/view/BC47F21F2E76AAB/The.Deep.Blue.Sea.2011.576p.BluRay.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Terence Davies – The Deep Blue Sea (2011) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
Terence Davies’ The House of Mirth is a tragic love story set against a background of wealth and social hypocrisy in turn of the century New York. Lily Bart is a ravishing socialite at the height of her success who quickly discovers the precariousness of her position when her beauty and charm start attracting unwelcome interest and jealousy. Torn between her heart and her head, Lily always seems to do the right thing at the wrong time. She seeks a wealthy husband and in trying to conform to social expectations, she misses her chance for real love with Lawrence Selden.

The House of Mirth (2000) -- Terence Davies.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	2h 20mn
Size: 	2.43 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	716x562 ~> 1039x562
Aspect ratio:  	1.85:1
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	2 150 Kbps
BPP: 	0.223
Audio
#1:  	English 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 Kbps
#2:  	English 2.0ch AC-3 @ 128 Kbps (Commentary by director Terence Davies)

https://nitro.download/view/0F049AA52A96208/The_House_of_Mirth_(2000)_–_Terence_Davies.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English, Spanish, Russian (muxed)

The post Terence Davies – The House of Mirth (2000) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

The streets of our cities are haunted by the ghosts of those who were young here long ago. In memory we recall our own past happiness and pain. Terence Davies, whose subject has often been his own life, now turns to his city, Liverpool, England, and regrets not so much the joys of his youth as those he did not have. Central to these are the sexual experiences forbidden by the Catholic Church to which he was most devoted.

Liverpool was once a shipbuilding capital of the world, later a city broken by unemployment and crime, and now a recovering city named the European Capital of Culture in 2008. For many people, Liverpool’s cultural contribution begins and ends with the Beatles, and Davies does little to update that view, except to focus on its postwar architecture, which is grotesque, and its modern architecture, much improved, but still lacking the grandeur of the city’s Victorian glory.

The way Davies and cinematographer Tim Pollard regard heritage buildings and churches, their domes and turrets worthy of an empire, suggests that he, like me, prefers buildings that express a human fantasy and not an abstract idea. What is it that makes the Hancock magnificent and Trump Tower appalling? Not just the Trump’s bright shiny tin appearance, the busy proportions of its facade or its see-through parking levels, but a lack of modesty and confidence. It insists too much. However, there is nothing modest about the grandiloquent civic structures of Liverpool, but their ornate cheekiness is sort of touching. They had no idea that they were monuments to the end of an era.

In this city Davies was born into modest circumstances, was shaped and defined by the church, was tortured by his forbidden homosexual feelings, gradually grew to reject the church and the British monarchy. He remembers a boy who put a hand on his shoulder “and I didn’t want him to take it away.” In his parish Church of the Sacred Heart, “I prayed until my knees bled,” but release never came.

These memories are mixed with those of the city, suggested with remarkable archival footage collated from a century: crowds in the streets and at the beach, factories, shipyards, faces, movie theaters, snatches of song, long-gone voices, an evocation of a city tuned in to the BBC for the Grand National, a long-gone horse and rider falling at the first hurdle, the wastelands surrounding new public housing, children and dogs at play and yes, the Beatles.

The soundtrack includes classical music and pop tunes, and the deep, rich voice of Davies, sometimes quoting poems that match the images. The film invites a reverie. It inspired thoughts of the transience of life. It reminded me sharply of Guy Maddin’s “My Winnipeg” (2008), which combines old footage and new footage that looks even older into the portrait of a city that existed only in his imagination. I imagine the city fathers in both places were astonished by what their sons had wrought, although in Winnipeg, they would have found a great deal more to amuse them.

3.24GB | 1h 17m | 1920×1078 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/746D4BA78308F43/Of.Time.and.the.City.2008.1080p.WEBRip.AAC2.0.x264-NOGRP.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English,French

The post Terence Davies – Of Time and the City (2008) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

A lyrical reverie about a young Liverpool boy coming of age in the 1950s among his loving family and the austere Catholic Church as he enters the rigors of school, nurtures a bedazzled love of the movies and longs for companionship.

+Commentary by Terence Davies and Michael Coulter

2.18GB | 1h 25m | 1024×552 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/40F8DC61FBA09CE/The.Long.Day.Closes.1992.576p.BDRip.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language:English
Subtitles:English

The post Terence Davies – The Long Day Closes (1992) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
Emily Dickinson (Cynthia Nixon) maintains close ties with her family while becoming a prolific poet whose work becomes recognized after her death in 1886.

3.37GB | 2h 05mn | 1024×428 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/30FE0C69572532D/A_Quiet_Passion_(2016)_–_Terence_Davies.mkv

Language(s):English+commentary
Subtitles:English (muxed)

The post Terence Davies – A Quiet Passion (2016) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

AN EPIC STORY OF LOVE, LOSS AND THE LAND THAT INSPIRED IT ALL.
The daughter of a Scottish farmer comes of age in the early 1900s.

5.47GB | 2h 15mn | 1280×536 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/CEA10C35DC3A575/Sunset.Song.2015.720p.BluRay.X264-AMIABLE.mkv

Language:English
Subtitles:English

The post Terence Davies – Sunset Song (2015) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
The film, depicting life in working-class Liverpool from the 1940s into the 50s, is already a modern classic.

Now that Eileen, Maisie, and Tony are adults, their childhood memories – and in particular those associated with their father – are inconsistent. While Eileen clings to happier times, her siblings remember his brutal violent nature, which has been a major influence on their growth and development. This troubled family must deal with the day-to-day alongside their past. Terence Davies creates a loving portrait with this partly autobiographical tale (shot in two sections), and it was voted one of the greatest British films by Sight & Sound.

2.28GB | 1 h 24 min | 1024×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/1CE65F6894F126F/Terence_Davies_-_(1988)_Distant_Voices,_Still_Lives.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Terence Davies – Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) first appeared on Cinema of the World.