This week Chris Deacy is joined by Kevin Paul Lawrence to discuss the films; Trainspotting, In The Mood For Love, Shogun Assassin, and Akira.
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00:00 [Music]
00:13 Hello and welcome to Kent Film Club.
00:15 I'm Chris Deasy and each week I'll be joined by a guest from Kent
00:19 to dive deep into the impact certain films have had on their life.
00:22 Each guest will reflect on the films which have meant the most to them over the years.
00:26 And every week there will be a Kent Film Trivia
00:29 where we quiz you at home about a film that has a connection to the county.
00:33 And now let me introduce you to my guest for this week.
00:37 He is originally from the west side of Chicago, studied painting and drawing
00:41 and then moved to San Francisco and LA where he developed his eye for cinematography
00:46 which he continues to practice here in Kent.
00:49 He is Kevin Paul Lawrence.
00:51 Great to have you on the programme Kevin.
00:53 Great to have, great to be here. Thanks for having me.
00:56 And I've seen that, well it's a long way from LA and San Francisco
00:59 to the world of Trainspotting which is your first choice.
01:02 Yeah, Trainspotting is a film I saw when I was in the military, in the US military.
01:09 And it was the first film I saw that kind of connected me to an international world.
01:14 So here I am, a kid from the west side of Chicago
01:18 and I felt like I could relate to these characters who are from Scotland.
01:23 And I really enjoyed the sort of accent and I sort of poured over the books
01:29 and the glossary at the back of the book so I could get an understanding.
01:33 And I kept watching the film over and over until I could watch it without subtitles.
01:36 It's just a film that has really brought a lot of joy to my life.
01:39 And it's also like one of the first films that was outside of the sort of normal blockbuster film
01:45 that I really fell in love with.
01:47 Yeah because when that came out, am I right in thinking that it had to be dubbed
01:51 or there was something they had to do for American audiences
01:54 so that some of the more pronounced sort of Scottish dialect could be understood?
01:58 I don't know if that was your experience when you first watched this.
02:01 Yeah, so the first 20 minutes was actually redubbed
02:04 because it was just a bit too hard for Americans.
02:06 And so I saw this at the cinema, funny enough, in the same week
02:11 that I saw both Heat and Casino.
02:14 And Trainspotting is one of those films, Danny Boyle,
02:17 that has really sort of stood the test of time.
02:20 The first time it's been picked on this program actually by anyone.
02:22 So is there anything in particular about this that really galvanizes you?
02:29 I think for me what I love about it is, you know, I'm a cinematographer myself,
02:34 I love the images, but what really sticks out to me is a sort of break from reality.
02:40 Like there's the scene in the beginning, am I allowed to give spoilers?
02:44 Of course.
02:45 There's a scene closer to the beginning where he's got diarrhea.
02:49 So he goes inside of a toilet to get these suppositories.
02:55 But it's like this sort of magical dream sequence
02:59 where he's like swimming through the toilet, then he comes out.
03:02 And I love the way the film has reality,
03:05 but it sort of breaks from it in certain points
03:08 to give us the main character's interiority.
03:11 I just like kind of love that because, you know, we all live in reality,
03:14 but I love when a film can sort of break from it.
03:16 Yeah, and when I saw this as well, it felt really groundbreaking at the time.
03:19 Because it was almost as though we entered into his headspace.
03:21 And his headspace is quite a messy one.
03:24 And, you know, there's lots of references to cold turkey in there.
03:26 So it felt like the sort of film that, while watching it,
03:30 I felt a sort of sense of fascinated, but estranged at the same time.
03:34 Because this was a headspace I'm not sure I wanted to occupy.
03:37 Yeah, it's not really a headspace that you want to occupy.
03:42 Particularly there's like the scene with the sort of the baby,
03:47 where he's like going cold turkey.
03:51 And then they go through these like maybe game show sequences.
03:55 And like the baby sort of walking towards him.
03:58 It's not a place that you want to go.
04:00 But I think that's sort of the magic of film.
04:02 Like it puts you in a space that you would never occupy in reality.
04:08 Yeah, and you mentioned, of course, your work in cinematography.
04:12 So is this the sort of film that, you know,
04:14 in watching it, you would get a lot of your ideas?
04:17 Is this like the template?
04:18 Is this, does this have the sort of the cinematography
04:21 that kind of matches your own style?
04:23 It's rare that I get a project like this.
04:25 But I think if I were picking the kind of films that I'd like to shoot,
04:30 I think this will be the kind of film that I'd like to shoot.
04:33 I haven't gotten a chance to do that.
04:36 Like I think when we discuss further,
04:38 we'll talk about my own short film that I directed.
04:42 And I think it definitely pulls from films like this.
04:44 And a film we'll talk about later.
04:46 Yeah. And so tell me a bit more about "Trainspotting" in that sense.
04:49 That when you saw it, obviously you were in a very different part of the world.
04:52 And that was perhaps particularly pronounced
04:55 by the Scottish accents we were just talking about.
04:58 But was there something more sort of universal?
05:01 Was it something that, you know,
05:02 why did it resonate for you at the time that it did?
05:05 Oh, that's an interesting question.
05:07 Well, I think what made it resonate for me was
05:11 the way that it approached the characters.
05:14 Like I think, like sure the characters are addicted.
05:17 They're kind of the sort of doubt and out sort of people that maybe you'd avoid.
05:23 But somehow the film has this tremendous sense of humanity.
05:28 And the way it presents them, like it doesn't judge them.
05:30 Although like we sort of go on this path with them
05:33 and we realize this is not where we should be
05:35 or where we want to be or where they should be.
05:37 But it still like humanizes them.
05:39 And there's a way that they speak about why they're doing what they're doing.
05:44 It's just a tremendous sense of humanity.
05:47 And I'm from the west side of Chicago.
05:49 And it's also a place where people probably wouldn't want to associate with.
05:55 But I think because you can see humanity in other people's,
05:58 I think it sort of connected with me.
06:00 Yeah, brilliant.
06:01 Well, thank you so much.
06:02 It's now time to move on to your second chosen film.
06:05 And you've gone for In the Mood for Love,
06:10 which I think we've also had on this program once before.
06:12 Okay, yeah.
06:13 In the Mood for Love, just speaking on cinematography,
06:18 I think it's just a beautiful piece.
06:20 There's just this sort of intimacy within the film.
06:24 There's sort of this unspoken language with the camera work.
06:28 The lighting just creates this wonderful sense of environment.
06:32 The camera work, the way all the rooms are so small,
06:36 and the way Christopher Dole chooses to shoot within doorways and cuts off faces.
06:41 So you aren't seeing what this character looks like,
06:44 but you're sort of getting a sense of who they are.
06:46 It's just a beautiful film.
06:47 Yeah.
06:48 And tell me a bit about what...
06:49 So this is another film...
06:50 The word exotic comes to mind,
06:53 because I think that was the...
06:54 When I was talking about this with a previous guest.
06:56 And so this is Hong Kong?
06:58 Yeah, yes.
06:59 And was it 2001?
07:01 I believe so.
07:02 So 2000.
07:03 So when you were watching this, were you watching it in Chicago?
07:08 I was in LA...
07:10 Not LA.
07:11 I was in San Francisco.
07:12 I was in film school at the time.
07:14 Which film school is a time where people watch films
07:18 that they wouldn't have seen otherwise.
07:21 Yeah, you know what?
07:23 I guess thinking about life, it was a time when I was in love.
07:27 And I think when you're in love and you're in your 20s,
07:30 it has a very intense feeling to it
07:32 that I think you don't really have when you're older.
07:35 So I think there's a sort of romance to the film
07:38 that connects with my life at the time.
07:40 Because often that's one of the joys of film, isn't it?
07:42 That it can be somewhere that you've never physically,
07:45 geographically travelled to,
07:46 but you can have this sense of allure.
07:48 You can have it with a historical film,
07:50 but also that sort of sense that you can see
07:52 the universality of the story,
07:54 that you could see yourself in this space
07:57 and perhaps following through
07:58 on the various trajectories of the characters.
08:02 Yeah, yeah, definitely.
08:03 The film is about these two characters
08:08 who are both married but not to each other.
08:10 And they sort of figure out that their two partners
08:16 are in an affair with each other
08:18 and they're deciding not to have an affair,
08:21 or perhaps they do.
08:22 And the film leaves it up to interpretation,
08:26 whether or not they do engage in an affair.
08:29 And I think I've sort of felt that questioning of,
08:34 "Is my partner cheating on me?"
08:35 And I don't know, it did feel universal.
08:38 Yeah, and also when you can watch a film,
08:41 and perhaps even when it bears repeated viewings,
08:44 and you still get something different out of it,
08:46 there's sometimes those big existential questions,
08:48 shall we say,
08:49 sometimes resonate different ways
08:51 at different times in your life.
08:52 And this could be the go-to.
08:54 Was that your experience?
08:55 Yeah, definitely.
08:56 Yeah, because as you find a film
09:00 in different times of your life,
09:03 it finds you at different stages of your life.
09:05 And I think, like I did know about the affair,
09:10 but I hadn't been with that partner
09:13 who'd had the affair before.
09:15 So I didn't question how I fit into the film
09:21 the first time I saw it.
09:22 I just saw beautiful cinematography.
09:24 And as I got older,
09:25 then it becomes me who's experiencing the film.
09:29 Yeah, and also sometimes when you're watching a film
09:32 that is set in a different place,
09:34 maybe a different sort of period,
09:36 maybe if the main character is of a different gender,
09:39 sometimes it kind of appeals even more
09:42 because it wrong-foots you.
09:43 You're not necessarily expecting it to connect,
09:45 or at least you go in perhaps with a more open mind,
09:47 and you come away feeling,
09:48 "Gosh, I'm not alone.
09:49 "I'm not the only person who's been through this."
09:50 I mean, I've been to many BFI seasons, for example,
09:52 and you're thinking, "Yes, this is my life."
09:54 Even if it's a film that you've watched before
09:56 at a certain period in your life,
09:58 it completely gets you.
10:00 As you said, the film, I like the way you put that.
10:01 The film finds you as much as you find the film.
10:04 Yes, yes, definitely.
10:05 Yeah, I mean, that is the power of cinema, isn't it?
10:09 It's telling stories
10:11 that can be told from different perspectives.
10:14 And because of the power of film
10:18 that's different from theatre or written words,
10:23 it's that you have the close-up,
10:24 and so you can be so close to a person
10:27 that you would never be that close to in real life.
10:30 You can see the very minute subtleties
10:35 with their performance.
10:36 It just gives you this level of intimacy
10:40 that no other storytelling can bring.
10:42 Yeah, and have you found this?
10:43 Because of that notion of searching,
10:45 that sometimes films can play a game of detective,
10:50 or you're watching it,
10:51 and you're trying to put all the different pieces together.
10:53 So have you found through repeated
10:55 or subsequent viewings of this film
10:58 that you've found that it connects
11:00 particularly strongly for you?
11:03 Yeah, definitely.
11:04 I think particularly, like I said before,
11:07 like where I entered the film
11:09 was through the cinematography.
11:10 And then watching it again,
11:12 it was through, still through the cinematography,
11:15 but the way they cut people off
11:17 and the way, you know, you can't enter a room.
11:20 And so some scenes are very intimate,
11:23 and then some scenes you're held off at an arm's distance,
11:26 and then you want to get in that room,
11:28 you want to get closer.
11:29 I so want to watch this film again.
11:31 Okay, well, that's about all the time we have
11:33 for this first half of the show.
11:34 However, before we go to the break,
11:36 we have a Kent Film Trivia question for you at home.
11:39 Which 2021 film features the Port of Dover?
11:44 Is it A, Old, B, Firebird, or C, After Love?
11:51 We'll reveal the answer right after this break.
11:53 Don't go away.
11:54 Hello and welcome back to Kent Film Club.
12:08 Just before the ad break,
12:10 we asked you at home a Kent Film Trivia question.
12:13 Which 2021 film features the Port of Dover?
12:16 I asked, is it A, Old, B, Firebird, or C, After Love?
12:22 And now I can reveal to you that the answer was, in fact, C, After Love.
12:26 In addition to the port,
12:28 the film also utilised a private Dover residence,
12:31 which was used as Mary's, played by Joanna Scanlon's home, in the film.
12:35 Did you get the answer right?
12:37 Well, it is time now, Kevin, to move on to your next chosen film,
12:42 and you've gone for Shogun Assassin.
12:46 Yes, I kind of felt the pressure of picking the films.
12:51 I didn't want them all to be very serious films,
12:54 so I went with one that was a little less serious.
12:57 It's sort of an exploitation film from the 80s.
13:01 And I saw this film at Quentin Tarantino's cinema in Hollywood called The New Beverly.
13:11 I saw a 35mm print of it, and I didn't know what to expect.
13:16 I went with my best friend at the time,
13:17 and we just sort of went expecting to see this ridiculous film.
13:23 But it was phenomenal.
13:24 Basically, the film follows this comic or manga about the lone wolf and cub,
13:32 and it's this guy who used to be an assassin for the Shogun.
13:38 And then the Shogun turns on him, and now he's going on this quest of vengeance.
13:45 But this film is an American production,
13:48 where they took the original films and they cut it together,
13:51 and they added this sort of dub over it that is at times comedic and at times very serious.
13:59 And somehow they picked these two characters.
14:02 They perfectly picked their voices so that they match the characters quite well.
14:07 Yeah, and so you saw that.
14:10 Was that sort of unexpected?
14:11 You saw it, you say, at Tarantino's cinema.
14:13 So were you going in expecting some sort of great exploitation thing?
14:17 Why did this resonate?
14:19 Because he's so immersed in movies.
14:20 This one really resonated for you?
14:23 I think it's just the story.
14:26 It was just before I had become a father.
14:28 Now while me and my sons don't go on sword quests,
14:34 there's just something quite great about this dad with his son.
14:39 And even though they're going on this sort of revenge path,
14:42 he still cares for his son.
14:43 There's something quite beautiful about it.
14:45 But then also it's very comedic and over the top.
14:48 Yeah, and that sort of co-mingling, should we say,
14:52 that juxtaposition of the family and the professional.
14:55 I mean, lots of films, Leon is another one that comes to mind.
14:57 But that sort of notion of the hitman living in a real world context,
15:02 something of course that Tarantino's films often deal with, that sort of interplay.
15:06 So do you think this film connected more for you after becoming a father?
15:09 I think it definitely did.
15:12 On Instagram, there's pictures of this film for me.
15:16 Just because, I don't know, there's something about the sort of
15:19 the roughness of the world.
15:21 Like the world is not, you know, there's love and beauty in it,
15:27 but there's a lot of antagonistic forces.
15:30 And you feel like it's like you and your children,
15:32 and you're trying to keep them safe against the world.
15:35 Now while the antagonistic forces aren't quite at this level, but yeah.
15:41 Yeah, but also a theme that has sort of come through,
15:44 I think in your choices so far, is that sort of transgression,
15:46 that sort of blurring somewhere between the reality and something else that's going on.
15:51 That sort of other space, maybe that liminal space that's being inhabited.
15:54 And because I haven't seen this film,
15:56 but I kind of feel that there are lots of tropes, as you've been describing them,
15:59 that kind of make for a really rather perfect film.
16:03 Yeah, yeah, I would say so.
16:05 Like I think films don't always have to be super serious.
16:09 They don't always have to, you know, live within reality.
16:12 While I do enjoy their similitude in cinema,
16:15 I think a film should go further than what is possible, because it can.
16:19 Like you can't do the things that a film does in real life, and I think that's beautiful.
16:26 And also, because that's often what's misunderstood.
16:28 I know Tarantino himself hates being asked those questions about violence, you know.
16:32 What's the relationship between real world violence and violence in film?
16:35 I know this is not obviously a Tarantino film,
16:37 but it's from that kind of stable, isn't it?
16:39 Yeah.
16:40 And it takes you on a journey that maybe you don't want to go on,
16:42 but you kind of feel that it was an earned and a necessary journey.
16:48 Yes. I mean, he references the film in Kill Bill
16:51 and in other films from that era, like Lady Snowblood.
16:57 And I think the violence is somewhat cathartic.
17:00 Like it's quite different than watching, you know, Come and See,
17:05 or All Quiet on the Western Front.
17:07 It's like a violence that doesn't feel rooted in reality.
17:11 And I think because of it, like you can sort of watch it
17:13 without feeling this sort of attachment to reality.
17:19 Yeah. And so do you think this sort of film works really well
17:22 in a kind of double bill type scenario?
17:24 Because Tarantino is really good at those sort of things.
17:26 When you saw this, was it a standalone,
17:28 or were you watching this as part of a wider body of films?
17:31 Oh, man, you know what? I don't remember.
17:34 I'm pretty sure it was just this film,
17:36 but it would have been a thing that he played with multiple films.
17:40 If you had to pick your own double bill, what would you see this in with?
17:46 Would you go for something completely different,
17:47 or is there another film that it's a good counterpart to?
17:50 I think Lady Snowblood is a great choice.
17:54 Lady Snowblood almost follows the Kill Bill storyline quite well.
18:00 It's like this samurai assassin woman who is going on this quest of revenge,
18:06 and I think this sort of revenge theme fits quite well.
18:10 But it's also nice that it's a man and his son,
18:14 and then Lady Snowblood is a woman.
18:16 And I think that's quite a beautiful co-mingling.
18:20 Brilliant stuff.
18:21 Well, it's time now, Kevin, to move on to your final chosen film,
18:25 and you've gone for Akira.
18:27 Yeah. Has this one been on the show?
18:30 No, it hasn't.
18:31 And again, I'm ashamed to admit I haven't watched it.
18:34 So tell me what the appeal is.
18:35 I'm guessing it's not that dissimilar from some of your previous choices.
18:39 Yeah, so this one is animated,
18:42 and I do a lot of work in stop motion, which is a different kind of animation.
18:47 But I think what's great about this film is just this phenomenal sense of animation.
18:54 Like, everything was hand-drawn.
18:56 It has this beautiful liquid movement to some of the scenes.
19:00 Like, there's this opening sequence where this gang is riding on motorcycles,
19:07 and the taillights, they have this sort of like liquid sort of blurring effect.
19:12 And the way the cities, like the way they do the parallax of the cities,
19:15 it's just a gorgeous film.
19:17 And then the story, I think it's just sort of magical realism, science fiction story
19:24 about a post-apocalyptic Tokyo.
19:27 I just think it's a great film.
19:29 Yeah. And in terms of an influence on your own work in cinematography,
19:34 do you sort of watch this and think, "Yeah, this is how it's best done"?
19:37 I would love to be able to do a film like this,
19:42 like to somehow bring this sort of style of cinematography into the real world.
19:48 I believe, well, there's an artist who I won't mention now
19:52 because he's kind of disgraced at the moment.
19:54 But one of his music videos sort of plays on that motorcycle sequence,
19:59 and it looked quite beautiful in live action.
20:01 And it's also just a great kind of story.
20:05 Like, if you could do a science fiction story like this, I think it would be a great film.
20:09 I mean, some of the best films are hybrids, aren't they, in many ways?
20:13 That they take lots of different elements, they fuse them together,
20:16 and often they work in a very global, cross-cultural kind of context.
20:21 Can you remember when you first saw this and what sort of influence it had on you?
20:26 Well, I first saw this film when I was 14,
20:31 and it was like a time when I just got into animation, to Japanese animation specifically.
20:38 And what I found compelling about it, there was like, I was watching on some DVD
20:43 about how they say that Japan makes so many post-apocalyptic films
20:49 because, in a sense, it is post-apocalyptic, you know, based on World War II.
20:55 And I loved how they brought in this sort of sense of like a post-nuclear Japan,
21:02 even though it was a future from there,
21:05 and also had these sort of knucklehead kids as their main characters,
21:09 which I think is another through line in these films.
21:12 Were you aware, when you selected these four films,
21:15 were you aware that there might be any kind of a pattern of these sort of films
21:19 that you've grown up with?
21:21 Is there, do you kind of feel that there's a certain sort of go-to cinema for you?
21:26 Yeah, you know what, I hadn't thought of it when I put the list together,
21:29 but now that we're talking about it, I'm definitely seeing it.
21:33 Yeah, I mean, do you kind of feel that if you had to recreate a film,
21:37 or if you, you know, as a cinematographer,
21:39 there is clearly a thread through all of these sort of films,
21:42 but what do you think is the reason this film has stood for you the test of time?
21:48 What is it that has made this endure?
21:50 That's a good question.
21:52 I think what's made this film endure is that it's such,
22:02 it's such an original seeming film.
22:06 Like it didn't seem like they were trying to copy other films.
22:08 They tried to make the best film that they could with the resources that they had.
22:13 And I think, you know, I know currently a lot of films are remakes,
22:18 and I think just original storytelling
22:22 that is sort of grounded within their own culture.
22:26 And these sort of children who are not, who are counter-cultural,
22:32 and I think that allowed it to find a universality,
22:35 even though there's a very specific form of storytelling.
22:38 Yeah, and did you see it on the big screen when you said you saw it when you were 14?
22:42 What was the format in which you watched it?
22:43 Unfortunately, I did not.
22:44 I saw it on VHS, and there was a specific sort of dub in the mid-90s,
22:50 which I think is great.
22:52 I've since watched it in the Japanese version,
22:54 but there's just something about a dub which ties into Shogun Assassin
22:58 that I find quite compelling.
23:00 Yeah, and I have to ask that question
23:01 because we were talking about trainspotting earlier,
23:04 but dubbing versus subtitling?
23:07 Oh, that's a good question.
23:09 As someone who just said that I do love a, I do find a dub compelling,
23:14 but I think I find it compelling
23:16 because it says something about the time that it was done,
23:19 and sometimes that dub isn't the best way to experience the film,
23:24 but it is a great document of that time.
23:27 So I would say that subtitles are the thing that I prefer.
23:31 Fantastic.
23:31 Well, I'm afraid that that's all the time we have for today.
23:35 Many thanks to Kevin Paul Lawrence for joining us
23:37 and being such a brilliant guest,
23:39 and many thanks to you all for tuning in.
23:41 Be sure to come back and join us again at the same time next week.
23:45 Until then, that's all from us.
23:47 Goodbye.
23:48 [Music]
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