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Synopsis
British writer-director Terence Davies's (DISTANT VOICES, STILL LIVES) earliest films, shown together as a trilogy, are interwoven semi-autobiographical short films about one man's painful conflict between his homosexuality and religion. CHILDREN (1976) introduces Robert Tucker (played by several different actors in the films), a hangdog child beaten into silence by corporeal and emotional punishment from bullies, Catholic schoolteachers, and a violent father. Austere black and white images from Tucker's childhood are interlaced with incidents from his equally alienated young adulthood, which is defined by his dawning homosexuality. In MADONNA AND CHILD (1980), Tucker is a hollow-eyed, middle-aged Liverpool office worker living with his beloved elderly mother. Beneath his bland exterior, Tucker is ravaged by guilt over his sexuality and inability to find solace in the Church. Davies artfully juxtaposes religious imagery and music with scenes from Tucker's increasingly sadomasochistic sex life. In the closing DEATH AND TRANSFIGURATION (1983), Tucker is a decrepit old man in a hospital bed, robbed of speech by a stroke – but still haunted by images from his troubled life. Davies skilfully merges time and different styles of evocative music to create a dreamlike, moving vision of one man's isolation, repression, and grief.
Note, the audio is an uncompressed Linear PCM track. This has the unfortunate side-effect of picking up some sound-editing defects in Children but pays dividends in the latter two parts.
Note, the audio is an uncompressed Linear PCM track. This has the unfortunate side-effect of picking up some sound-editing defects in Children but pays dividends in the latter two parts.
Product Description
United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital Stereo ), English ( Subtitles ), SPECIAL FEATURES: Black & White, Booklet, Cast/Crew Interview(s), Commentary, Interactive Menu, Scene Access, SYNOPSIS: For the first time ever on DVD, from BFI Fellowship Awarded Terence Davies, The Terence Davies Trilogy. The Terence Davies Trilogy acts, as do his two later films, Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes, as a reconstruction of his childhood and youth in working class post-war Liverpool. In his trilogy he uses alter ego Robert Tucker, a shy and introverted child who is assumed to be not as able mentally as his peers and so bullied by those around him. His home life is darkly overshadowed by his violent abusive father and his guilt over homosexual feeling, which is exacerbated by his strict Catholic upbringing. These dark and unhappy memories though are interspersed by his tender and warm feelings towards the entertainment culture springing up around Liverpool, listening to the wireless and visiting the cinema being favourite pastimes of his. Davies sticks to his fragmented, patchwork narrative to show the nature of his own personal memory, interspersed with snatched songs and surreal daydreams and so the audience can emphasise with his every grin and grimace. With Liverpool's City Of Culture recognition The Terence Davies Trilogy becomes ever more important as its appreciation of the pop culture which came out of Liverpool is accredited with Robert's happiness, and therefore Terence Davies' and his admission into cinema himself. ...The Terence Davies Trilogy
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
I first saw the film on Channel Four many years ago and it stayed in my psyche from then on. I read the book as well and again the story affected me deeply.
This film isn't easy watching at all, it's raw, painful, upsetting, depressing but yet ultimately uplifting too. It is not going to win any awards for furthering the cause of Gay Pride - it paints too bleak a picture of homosexuality (all sexuality?) for that. What it does do however is lay before us the life of one man and the consequences of choice denied, decisions made; later regreted and a life lived in fear.
The film is highly critical of organised religion and Catholicism in particular - anyone who knows anything about Terence Davies will understand that.
Buy this film and watch it with an open mind and be so grateful that you have more options and opportunities than the poor soul featured. Incidentally, Wilfred Brambell's performance in the last part of the trilogy is brilliant.
This film isn't easy watching at all, it's raw, painful, upsetting, depressing but yet ultimately uplifting too. It is not going to win any awards for furthering the cause of Gay Pride - it paints too bleak a picture of homosexuality (all sexuality?) for that. What it does do however is lay before us the life of one man and the consequences of choice denied, decisions made; later regreted and a life lived in fear.
The film is highly critical of organised religion and Catholicism in particular - anyone who knows anything about Terence Davies will understand that.
Buy this film and watch it with an open mind and be so grateful that you have more options and opportunities than the poor soul featured. Incidentally, Wilfred Brambell's performance in the last part of the trilogy is brilliant.
23 of 38 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
if film and wonder and reality and fantasy and sadness and humanity and life and death AND (once more) FILM ...
interest YOU
GET THIS - GO SOMEWHERE DARK and WATCH IT
dave
interest YOU
GET THIS - GO SOMEWHERE DARK and WATCH IT
dave
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Robert Tucker: A life of quiet desperation
19 Aug 2010
Amazon Verified Purchase
This work contains three short/shortish, black-and-white, films that Davies did for television in the 1970s and early 80s. They deal with Liverpool, homosexuality, Catholicism, mother-love, repression, and obscurity. The first, "Children," shows a youngster, Robert Tucker, his long-suffering mother and tyrannical, paranoid and perhaps insane father. The boy is just starting to wonder about his attraction to other males, particularly an older one he sees in the shower.The second opus, "Madonna and Child," portrays him as a thirtysomething man, a clerk in a shipping office, who cares for/about his mother and regularly attends church, even going to confession. He also leads a closet life unknown to the few who know him: trysts with other men, some in leather, that explore the rougher aspects of gay sex. This is shown obviously but not at length. Even when he goes to confession, he tells the priest everything except his secret life. Is it because he feels what he is doing is not really wrong? The final part, "Death and Transfiguration," shows Tucker as a very old man, dying alone in a hospital. It is depresssingly effective. At the point of death, we see him reaching out physically: to God, or to that youth he once saw in the shower? This compedium is excellent but not upbeat.
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