Sunday, 30 June 2013

A Story of Children and Film - a wonderful essay on the brilliance of film at capturing childhood

A Story of Children and Film is a beautiful, intelligent and mesmerising film essay on how children and childhood have been portrayed in film over the years.  Mark Cousins has an extraordinary ability to engage, inspire and inform all at the same time. 

Put together in an entrancing way, that feels like one of the relentless and exciting journeys depicted in some of the chosen films, Cousins identifies several key emotions of childhood (from wariness, to adventure, to the strop) and picks clips from films both familiar and strange to demonstrate how good film can be at reflecting the world back at us.  He does this not only by pointing out what the film is showing us but how it is showing it to us – by camera work, lighting, editing, sound, showing the brilliance of the film makers behind the clips.  I was completely engrossed from start to finish, and came away with another list of films to check out.


This is a documentary that can speak for itself, so I’m not going to say much more other than check it out if you can.

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