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This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Robert Nishimura give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Robert are joined (at the end) by Josh Brunsting as they conclude a two-part discussion of The Actuality Dramas of Allan King. This episode will focus on the last two films in this five-disc set, released in 2003 and 2005.
About the films:
Canadian director Allan King is one of cinema’s best-kept secrets. Over the course of fifty years, he shuttled between features and shorts, big-screen cinema and episodic television, comedy and drama, fiction and nonfiction. It was with his cinema-verité-style documentaries, though’”his ‘actuality dramas,’ as he called them’”that King left his greatest mark on film history. These startlingly intimate studies of people whose lives are in flux’”damaged children, warring spouses, the terminally ill’” always done without narration or interviews, are riveting and at times emotionally overwhelming. Humane, cathartic, and important, Allan King’s spontaneous portraits of the everyday demand to be seen.
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Timeline for the podcast:
Introduction (00:00:01 – 00:06:00)
Dying at Grace (00:06:01 – 00:34:45)
Memory For Max, Claire and Ida (00:34:46 – 00:47:32)
Conclusion Part 1 (00:47:33 – 00:57:42)
Conclusion Part 2, feat. Josh Brunsting (00:57:43 – 1:06:22)
Buy The Box Set On Amazon:
Episode Links:
King Overview:
- Allan King Films Collection (Official website)
- Director Introduction on MUBI.com
Dying at Grace:
- David’s Journey Through the Eclipse Series Review
- TVO resource page – Ontario Public Education Television
- Allan King talks about the making of Dying at Grace:
Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company:
- David’s Journey Through the Eclipse Series Review
- Baycrest Home – “Teaching ” edition of the DVD
- Variety review by Robert Koehler
Next time on the podcast: Eclipse Series 2012 in Review
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