terence davis
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Terence Davies, the critically beloved British writer-director who achieved international art-house success with two deeply autobiographical films set in his native Liverpool, England, Distant sounds, still life And long day ends, has died. He was 77 years old.
Davis’ official Instagram account confirmed the news on Saturday morning, adding that the filmmaker died peacefully at home after a short illness.
Much of Davis’s work is linked to personal emotional experience, reflecting in subtle ways on growing up as a gay, Catholic man in Liverpool in the 1950s and 60s. The filmmaker directly addressed his childhood in his 2008 feature documentary, of time and city,
Having won much praise at the Cannes Film Festival that year, the doc recounts both Davis’s own family life and the city, using archival footage, his commentary voiceover, classical music tracks, film clips, and excerpts from poetry and literature. The gathering is by turns extremely funny and sad, though always heart-touching.
talked to davis hollywood reporter The film is about the emotional process he went through at that time and how he struggled to balance his faith with his sexuality.
“I went back to my parish church during filming,” he said. THR. “I once prayed for forgiveness until my knees bled and I did nothing. You can’t shake it, the guilt. You are truly a sinner because you have original sin in your soul. It is wrong.”
In a review of Davis’ final film, a biographical drama about the World War I British poet Siegfried Sassoon, the title was Blessings, heartChief film critic David Rooney praised the director, citing his earlier work.
“Davies set the bar high for himself with the unique films that put him on the map in the late ’80s,” he wrote, “two excellent personal family dramas set in his native Liverpool, Distant sounds, still life And long day ends, Amazing documentary about his hometown, of time and city, And one of Edith Wharton’s finest film adaptations, house of mirth,
The review also noted that although gay subtext had pervaded the filmography of the openly gay Davis for decades, it was “deeply affecting”. Blessings The film was his first to openly explore romantic love between men through a series of relationships Sassoon has after his return from the war.
Davies was born on 10 November 1945, the youngest of 10 children of working-class Catholic parents in Liverpool. His mother was deeply religious and his father – whom he described as a “psychopath” in a 2021 Guardian interview – died of cancer when the filmmaker was just 7 years old.
Ten years after leaving school at the age of 16, the director attended Coventry Drama School. While he was a student there, he wrote the screenplay for an autobiographical short film. ChildrenThe first part of a trilogy consisting of madonna and child And death and changeReflecting his early life, his days as a young office clerk in Liverpool, and his own eventual death.
Following the success of his autobiographical companion pieces – Distant sounds, still life in 1988 and long day ends In 1992 – Davis made his first film set in America in 1995 neon bible, But that adaptation of the John Kennedy Toole novel about a boy coming of age in 1940s Georgia was poorly received in competition at Cannes. The director later admitted that the film did not work, calling it a transitional film, yet he found the necessary tools to deal with it. house of mirth,
A 2000 adaptation of Wharton’s novel, starring Gillian Anderson, Laura Linney, and Eric Stoltz, premiered at the New York Film Festival. Its sharp portrayal of class discrimination and social cruelty in the waning years of America’s Golden Age gave it unusual vitality for the period.
Davis spoke frequently in interviews about the short-sightedness of the British film industry and its fixation on mass commercial appeal. Despite becoming a worldwide celebrity after his early films – he received awards from several international film festivals, including Cannes, Toronto and Locarno – he struggled for years to obtain financing on many projects.
separately of time and cityAfter this it took him 11 years to make his next feature house of mirth, That was Terence Rattigan’s slow-moving transformation the deep blue sea, which captured the turmoil beneath the surfaces of the British playwright’s work. The film gave Rachel Weisz one of the standout roles of her career, earning her the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress.
Davis continues to create intimate drama in 2015 sunset song, a project that took 18 years to find funding. Based on the classic novel by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, it depicts the difficult life of a Scottish farm girl in the early 20th century. The following year, he made the best biographical picture a quiet passionStarring Cynthia Nixon as Emily Dickinson.
Another five years passed before Davis’ final film, BlessingsWas released in 2021. That project, again, reflected the unique interweaving of poetry and cinema in the output of a director who garnered an enthusiastic critical following over his four-decade career, even as his own national film industry shunned him. Had continued to underestimate. Him.
in 2021 Guardian In the interview quoted earlier, Davis reflected on the lack of institutional recognition for his work in Britain: “It would have been nice to be acknowledged by BAFTA. But they never have. Then again, there’s a part of me that wonders: isn’t this just vanity? If a film survives every time it is watched, that is the real reward.”