Film Season: Images of the Afterlife in Cinema
Curated by James Wilson with special guest speakers, Nicholas Royle and Robert Robertson
Jacob's Ladder Friday September 3, 2010. 6.00 p.m. Free.
After Life Friday September 10, 2010. 7.00 p.m. Free.
Stay Friday September 17, 2010. 7.00 p.m. Free.
Wristcutters: A Love Story Friday September 24, 2010. 7.00 p.m. Free.
Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Friday October 1, 2010. 7.00 p.m. Free.
A Matter of Life & Death Friday October 8, 2010. 7.00 p.m. Free.
[Bonus Feature] Battleship Potemkin Friday October 15, 2010. 6.00 p.m. Free.
Perhaps Swedenborg's most lasting legacy was in leaving behind him a description of the afterlife full of depth and detail. Heaven, hell, and the world of spirits in between were no longer nebulous places full of airy beings, but states in which human individuals reside—still thinking, still feeling, still yearning and still very much active.
Swedenborg's portraits and architecture of the next life have greatly influenced the written and visual arts; and cinema, albeit more indirectly, is no exception. Actors and actresses playing angels, spirits and demons by necessity emphasize their humanity, something very much in line with Swedenborg's notion that these spiritual beings were all once men and women; and their ‘physicality' too is aligned with Swedenborg's idea that ‘when what is spiritual touches and sees what is spiritual, it is just the same as when what is natural touches and sees what is natural'. The many earth-resembling hereafters featured in these films—full of communities, bureaucracies and social infrastructures—have far more in common with Swedenborg's visions than more traditional imagery of wispy clouds or fiery infernos. And on a broader level, the very audio-visual language of cinema is one of symbolism, like Swedenborg's own Doctrine of Correspondences.
This short season of cult and classic films focuses on depictions of life after death, ranging from the fantastic to the mundane and from the comic to the disturbing; but in spite of the films' variety in tone and theme, they all, in some small way, bear comparison with the things ‘seen and heard' by Swedenborg on his spiritual expeditions. The titles in this season have been chosen to represent a variety of genres—romance, comedy, thriller, arthouse and horror—and it is hoped there will be something for everyone. A bonus feature at the season's conclusion will be a screening of Battleship Potemkin, the masterpiece of Sergei Eisenstein, a reader of Swedenborg.
Images of the Afterlife in Cinema is a chance to see great films in a unique and atmospheric venue; the screenings taking place at the Swedenborg Society's grade II-listed Neoclassical lecture hall.
The screenings are free to all (there is no admission charge). Swedenborg Hall has a capacity of 100, so it is recommended you book in advance, which you can do via e-mail to James Wilson (james@swedenborg.org.uk) or Nora Foster (nora@swedenborg.org.uk) or by phoning 0207 405 7986.
The times advertised are for the start of the speaker, if there is a speaker, otherwise for the start of the film.
James Wilson is the Swedenborg Society's assistant editor and librarian. He has written for the Society's magazine Things Heard and Seen and journal The Arms of Morpheus—Essays on Swedenborg and Mysticism (2007). He has also had pieces published by The Use of English and is the translator of two volumes of the French writer Guy de Maupassant: To the Sun (Duchy of Lambeth, 2008) and The Foreign Soul & The Angelus (Duchy of Lambeth, 2008).
Nicholas Royle will be speaking before the screening of Jacob's Ladder (September 3). He is an author and journalist who teaches creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. He has written five novels including Saxophone Dreams (Penguin, 1996), Antwerp (Serpent's Tail, 2004), and The Director's Cut (Abacus, 2001)—the latter providing inspiration for this film season—and a collection of short stories, Mortality (Serpent's Tail, 2006). Nicholas has also edited thirteen anthologies of short fiction and has frequently written contributions for the Guardian, the Independent, Time Out, and the London Magazine, where he is their regular film reviewer.
Robert Robertson will be speaking before the screening of Battleship Potemkin (October 15). He is a composer and filmmaker. He has an MFA in Film Production from the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, Montreal, and a doctorate in Film Studies from King's College London. His music/films include Oserake and the River That Walks (2002), Doors of the Spirits and I'm Back (2007). He has composed the operas The Kingdom (1984),The Cathars (1995) and Empedocles (1995). Robert is the author of Eisenstein on the Audiovisual (I B Tauris, 2009).
Jacob's Ladder (1990, dir. Adrian Lyne, cert. 18)
Running time, 113 mins.
A dark, disturbing and disorientating film that centres around the character of Jacob Singer (Tim Robins), a Vietnam veteran living in New York with his girlfriend Jezebel (Elizabeth Peña). As the movie leaps and cuts in trippy fashion we seemingly follow flashbacks—in which Singer revisits an earlier part of his life, when he was happily living with his wife, Sarah, and two children—and hallucinatory sequences where Jacob starts seeing demons. Jacob falls dangerously ill with a fever and the boundary between imagination and what is real becomes blurred. Is he married to Sarah and his life with Jezebel a fantasy, a product of his fevered mind, or is it the other way round? The truth turns out to be more terrifying.
Friday September 3, 2010. 6.00 p.m. Swedenborg Hall. Free admission.
Special guest speaker, Nicholas Royle.
After Life (1998, dir. Hirokazu Kore-Eda, cert. PG)
Running time, 118 mins.
At times elegiac, at times humorous, this Japanese film is a meditation on memory, happiness, fulfilment and what it means to live. Set in a way station between heaven and earth, the recently deceased describe their favourite memories to functionaries who recreate them, the memories then being lived out forever by their progenitors. As we cut from interviewee to interviewee, we realize that perhaps the most interesting stories are those of the interviewers—spiritual civil servants whohave also lived lives and deaths but have never been able to move on to their personal heavens.
Friday September 10, 2010. 7.00 p.m. Swedenborg Hall. Free admission.
Stay (2005, dir. Marc Foster, cert. 18)
Running time, 99 mins.
Psychiatrist, Dr Sam Foster (Ewan McGregor), becomes caught up in the mind games of his patient, a disturbed art student, Henry Letham (Ryan Gosling), who has threatened to kill himself on his upcoming twenty-first birthday. Foster desperately tries to track down the elusive Letham before his self-appointed date of decease and in being drawn into Letham's world starts to question his own stability and sanity. Visually stunning, Stay finishes with a twist that will leave you wanting to watch it over again immediately, searching for the previously overlooked clues as to whose story you have really been engaged in.
Friday September 17, 2010. 7.00 p.m. Swedenborg Hall. Free admission.
Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006, dir. Goran Dukic, cert. 15)
Running time, 88 mins.
Heartbroken after splitting up with his girlfriend, Zia (Patrick Fugit) kills himself, emerging into an afterlife designated solely for suicides. Later he hears that his girlfriend, Desiree (Leslie Bibb), has also offed herself and sets out to find her. Wristcutters is a beautifully shot film in a carefully chosen colour palate and with a fine attention to detail. The subject matter might suggest a depressing film, but it is, as its title suggests, a love story. It is also a road movie and coming of age tale too—sensitive, charming and ultimately uplifting.
Friday September 24, 2010. 7.00 p.m. Swedenborg Hall. Free admission.
Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991, dir. Peter Hewitt, cert. PG)
Running time, 93 mins.
Delightful far-fetched comedy in which the eponymous slackers Bill S Preston, Esq (Alex Winter) and Ted ‘Theodore' Logan (Keanu Reeves) are killed by evil robot versions of themselves sent by a tyrant from the future. Bill and Ted escape hell, meet and defeat the Grim Reaper (William Sadler), and entreat God for a second chance to live, win a Battle of the Bands contest with their rock group Wild Stallyns and save the future!
Friday October 1, 2010. 7.00 p.m. Swedenborg Hall. Free admission.
A Matter of Life & Death (1946, dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, cert. U)
Running time, 104 mins.
Returning from a WW2 bombing raid during which his plane has been damaged and he has been left without a parachute, RAF airman Peter Carter (David Niven), strikes up a lasting bond in conversation with American radio operator, June (Kim Hunter), before he bails out to his inevitable doom. Amazingly, Carter survives—he was supposed to die,but his emissary from heaven got lost in fog and failed to find him. When the emissary, Conductor 71 (Marius Goring), catches up with Carter, he has since met June and fallen in love. Carter must plead his request to carry on living at a trial established in heaven. A Matter of Life & Death is one of the all time classics, originally commissioned as a way to develop Anglo-American relations after the war, it has gone on to charm its way into the hearts of thousands.
Friday October 8, 2010. 7.00 p.m. Swedenborg Hall. Free admission.
***Bonus Feature***
Battleship Potemkin (1925, dir. Sergei Eisenstein, cert. PG)
Running time, 75 mins.
Eisenstein's classic silent film is a dramatization of a real uprising that took place on a Russian battleship in the port of Odessa in 1905. Sailors on board the eponymous battleship protest and mutiny against unbearable conditions, the people of Odessa coming out in support of them before the revolt is ended with a massacre of the civilians by Cossack troops. Written as revolutionary propaganda, the film was amazingly banned and then X-rated in the UK till as late as 1978. Eisenstein was one of the greatest theoreticians and innovators of cinema. It is little known that he was also a reader of Swedenborg—a connection that Robert Robertson will highlight before this screening.
Friday October 15, 2010. 6.00 p.m. Swedenborg Hall. Free admission.
Special guest speaker, Robert Robertson